Ashmansworth

Ashmansworth

We had some business south of Newbury and looking at the map, I decided that Ashmansworth looked a promising location for a walk. I found this one on a site called John Harris's Walking in Hampshire - in the Andover section. There is also a link to John Harris's Walking in England. Both offer free downloads and other useful information and are a fantastic resource. The walk itself is on the AA website.

The walk starts in the centre of the pretty, spread-out village of Ashmansworth. There are a number of charming thatched cottages, but we especially admired the one in the photo above for its topiary - notably the "snowman" on the right.

You walk up the road back towards Newbury until you reach a crossing path - the Wayfarers' Walk - where you turn left (north-east). This is an immediately inviting path along the ridge of the North Hampshire Downs.



Later, it opens up to offer a long series of views over Berkshire, at their best when the path joins a lane.



A short way along the lane you join a track still heading north-east to reach Pilot Hill, which at 312m is the highest point in Hampshire. Here you leave the Wayfarers' Walk, cross fields and soon join a track meandering across wonderful downland towards the village of Faccombe. Soon there are excellent views ahead and to the right.



And as you are about to enter Faccombe you can look back to see the path you have been following descending from the tree line in the distance.



Faccombe is a small, classic estate village with a Georgian manor house, a late Victorian church and promising-looking pub. You skirt the Manor's grounds and head east down through woodland and then along a track along a valley bottom. Again, there is a wonderful view back as you leave the track to enter a copse.



Further field-edge paths and a copse lead you to the road into Ashmansworth and the end of the walk.

Maps: Explorer 144 (Basingstoke) and 131 (Romsey, Andover and Test Valley)

Distance: 5.5 miles.

Rating: four stars. Constantly climbing or ascending after the Wayfarer's Walk, this walk offers wonderful views throughout.


Reflections

The directions and map are very good, but we went briefly astray near the end. However, we applied a good general principal: if you are lost on this sort of walk (i.e. what you can see around you doesn't match the walk description), stop and return to the last place where the real world and the described world did match. (Or, at least, somewhere where you can see that place.) Now, look at the map (which is why you carry a map, even when you have good directions) and review the directions and work out the right route. This is a version of Denis Healey's famous law of holes: if you are in one, stop digging.


Sightings

The latter part of the was through the Faccombe Estate and we kept seeing these mysterious blue drums mounted on tripods with a sort of spike projecting below.



We also saw large numbers of pheasants and a few partridges. Eventually, we put it together: they are corn feeders for these game birds.